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“Why were they such a pair, when my father and I — at least in my memory — were such a mismatch?”
Ariel Sabar was visiting his parents in his childhood home in California, when he awoke one morning to high-pitched giggles coming from his parents’ room.
He opened the door to a Norman Rockwell-type image: his father, 70, riding his stationary bike in his pajamas; and his 6-year-old son, Seth, perched on its frame, cheerleading for his grandfather.
Ariel was stunned: “As a boy, I’d seen this house as a battlefield, a place where children and parents less often joshed than jousted,” he wrote in his 2009 Modern Love essay. Was his relationship with his father as turbulent as he remembered, or had he blinded himself to happier times?
In today’s episode, Ariel starts to see his father in a new light, as his son brings them closer together. Then, we hear a Tiny Love Story about a woman who took a DNA test that led to a life-changing discovery (fun fact: coincidentally, she is a geneticist).
Hosted by: Anna Martin
Produced by: Julia Botero, Hans Buetow, Anna Martin and Tracy Mumford
Edited by: Sara Sarasohn
Executive Producer: Wendy Dorr
Engineered by: Elisheba Ittoop
Original Music: Marion Lozano
Theme Music: Dan Powell
Essay by: Ariel Sabar
Read by: Edoardo Ballerini
Tiny Love Story by: Ricky Lewis
Founder, Modern Love: Daniel Jones
Editor, Modern Love Projects: Miya Lee
Special thanks: Mahima Chablani, Renan Borelli, Jeffrey Miranda, Julia Simon, Lisa Tobin, Sam Dolnick and Ryan Wegner at Audm.
Thoughts? Email us at modernlovepodcast@nytimes.com.
